Merry Christmas!

Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse- insert Twilight joke here

Are you going to stay up tonight to watch the lunar eclipse?



In this part of the world, there will be a total lunar eclipse which is definitely interesting, but I don't know if it's worth sacrificing sleep over. However, the real reason to stay up to watch is because today is also the winter solstice. A total lunar eclipse on the solstice hasn't happened in 372 years! The pinnacle will be tonight (well, technically early tomorrow morning) at 12:41 am (MST), if you want to catch it.

More information and photo credit, on NASA's web page.

Gingerbread Houses 2010

One of my favorite Christmas traditions, making gingerbread houses! We waited until Charlie had gone to bed (he's still a little young) and made our houses with Sam and Lily from kits I purchased at Costco last year for 6 bucks.

Black family photos

Thank you to Erin (who I will always think of as "Danza", her Brighton Girls Camp counselor name) and Matt for letting me photograph your beautiful family! We braved the cold to take photos at one of my favorite spots in downtown Salt Lake, Exchange Place. We had our photos there taken by Jeanette and I still love it. There's so much interesting architecture crammed into one street! It has the added benefit of being right by John's office, so I could go inside and warm up afterward.

Taco Night Winner

The winner of the Taco Night giveaway is...

lucky number 1 (that seriously never happens!) Congratulations to Maren! You should see your prize package soon!

Thanks to everyone who commented!

Taco Night Giveaway (*sponsored post)

I'm not found cooking dinner often. (Confession, I'm typing this on my laptop on top of the stove which is also covered in today's mail. Fire hazard? Eh, I live on the edge.) Lots of factors contribute to this, not least of which is I don't have a lot of recipes in my repertoire. However, I AM working on cooking dinner more often. The other night I made dinner out of the ingredients I had on hand and came up with Taco Night! It's always a hit with my extremely particular fellas (even Charlie will eat it), it's easy, fast, and let's face it, cheap.

I'm happy to announce a giveaway by the folks at Old El Paso because theirs is a product I actually use on the occasions that I do cook. I always have some taco seasoning in the cupboard (wayyy in the back behind the Pirate's Booty and pita chips) and I'm always pleased with how it pulls together my random ingredients into a MEAL!

If you're an infrequent cook like me, or a regular cook, or a gourmet chef, you'll want to comment on this post. One randomly selected commenter will win a prize package from Old El Paso and MyBlogSpark, which includes:

-a $10 Visa card to buy Taco Night ingredients (or anything that you want, truthfully)
-a packet of Old El Paso taco seasoning
-a collection of kitschy cute plastic serving dishes



If you don't win (or heck, even if you do) head over to MyBlogSpark and download a coupon for $0.60 off of any 2 Old El Paso products. Here's some new recipes to use them on: Double-Layer Tacos and Chicken Ranch Tacos.

For one entry leave a comment with your favorite "go-to" meal.
For an additional entry, blog, Tweet or Facebook about this giveaway (leave a separate comment).
For an additional entry, become a "follower" (in the column to the right) of this blog (leave a separate comment).
Please comment by Monday, December 13th at 11:59 p.m.
Winner announced sometime Tuesday, December 14th.

*MyBlogSpark and Old El Paso provided me with a prize package to sample and one to giveaway but the opinions expressed are my own.

Christmas tech (plus service giveaway!)

John and I started reading the Christmas story from the scriptures last night in bed. Only he was reading from the iPad and I was reading from my iPhone.

Technology is so great.

Really, though, I love having the scriptures with me wherever I go- it's comforting and convenient. (Now if only I spent more of my downtime reading the scriptures instead of playing Angry Birds or checking Facebook...)



Speaking of the family of iGadgets- please visit the blog A Perfect Lily today where Patti is giving away a chance at brand new iTouch in exchange for donations to save Olga (a Downs Syndrome child) from a life in an institution. If Olga's adoption account receives enough donations, she'll be able to be adopted into a family that will love and care for her.

'Tis the Season

I'm so excited for Christmas this year. John and I have been together for 8 Christmases now, 5 married or engaged. And now this is our second (!) Christmas with Charlie. I have been really thinking about creating traditions for our little family and being protective of our time together, just the three of us. John and I are talking about what we want our Christmas and our month of December to look like in the future and beginning to lay those foundations. I'm also stripping away the extraneous things that clutter our life and that we don't particularly enjoy.

So far we have decorated our Christmas tree with unbreakable ornaments on the lower branches. Charlie is very into the tree this year- last year he wasn't that interested in it. This year, every ornament is a ball that needs to be thrown across the room.

John and I put up the Christmas lights outside. Instead of lining the roof line like we do every year, we decided to change it up and string 4 strands of colored lights on the aspen tree by our door.

We began reading some of our Christmas picture books under the Christmas tree. John's family does this leading up to Christmas and it's one of my most favorite things to do now. I still remember the first year John and I cuddled up under the Christmas tree and read some books (it was before we had even kissed for the first time). Charlie definitely has the attention span of a toddler, so we made it through about 1 page but the important part to me is that we're doing it.

I bought Charlie a pair of Christmas pajamas to open on December 1st and wear throughout December. That was the plan anyway. What really happened is I forgot about them until last night when I didn't have any clean pj's for him after his bath. He was shivering and cold and I remembered the Christmas jammies and ripped open the package for him. Oh well. He looks pretty cute in them.

John has We have amassed quite the collection of hot cocoa, apple cider and wassail and we're doing our best to consume it all. It's pretty great to snuggle on the couch under a blanket with a mug of something hot in my hand.

I've had Christmas music on and it always makes me so cheerful. One of my favorite things is finding new music to add to our collection every year.

This year, I added Michael Buble's Christmas songs, Ingrid Michaelson's Snowfall, and many songs by Sufjan Stevens. I'm also listening to favorites from the last few years, including Fictionist's This Christmas (it's FREE!) and the Hotel Cafe presents Winter Songs. I even found an album from my childhood, called An Angel Tree Christmas, that my mom loved (and loves!) and we listened to constantly. And from John's youth, Mannheim Steamroller is a must.

What are your favorite traditions? What are you going to forego this year?